Looking For a Good Book

My youth was spent reading a lot of sword & sorcery (Robert E. Howard, Lin Carter, Fritz Leiber, etc) and playing a great deal of dungeons and dragons. Since then (some 40-50 years later!) I’ve had a desire to recreate some of that youthful S&S and D&D fun. It would seem a natural fit then to read books from the Dungeons & Dragons publishing company.

Maybe it’s that my expectations are too high, but I’ve just not found the enjoyment that I’ve been hoping for.

This book is the fourth in a series and perhaps this is some of the problem because I never felt pulled into the story. I was an observer to the action rather than experiencing the action.

The story: A pounding rain is disrupting everything in Sea of Fallen Stars and the coastal areas around it. From destroyed crops to to a halt in trading, the people affected are willing to do anything to recover. That includes worshiping the dreaded goddess Umberlee.

Umberlee’s chosen warrior is an undead pirate named Evendur Highcastle, and Evendur is on the hunt for Stedd Whitehorn so that he (Stedd) might be sacrificed to Umberlee. But because there’s a huge bounty for the boy Stedd Whitehorn, others are searching for him as well because it’s rumored that he’s a prophet of a different god, Lathander, who has been forgotten over time.

Stedd is a sweet youth – a bit too trusting for his own good, confident that Lathander will look after him – determined to spread the word about his god and possibly too unaware of how many people are looking for him.

Gods and goddesses and swords and sorcery abound in the coming cataclysmic clash in which only one god will be left standing.

Lots of implied action, but I generally found this a bit boring. Mostly I didn’t care, and again, I suspect that this might be, in large part, because I wasn’t privy to the beginning of the story. I didn’t know why I should be concerned about any of these people (other than general human concern).

I tried reading this two other times over the past few years and stopped about a third of the way in both times and while I got to the end now, it didn’t have much impact.

Looking for a good book? The Reaver by Richard Lee Byers is the fourth book in a series and there’s plenty of action, but it fails be to be exciting. 

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

2 stars

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The Reaver

author: Richard Lee Byers

series: The Sundering #4

publisher: Wizards of the Coast

ISBN: 9780786964581

hardcover, 352 pages